The NBA postseason so far may have been a bit of a letdown, but the league will "enter the summer as an ascendant league, a cultural and global giant created through progressive marketing and aggressive social media," according to Adam Kilgore of the WASHINGTON POST. In a culture "growing more individualistic, the NBA has employed nonrestrictive policies on sharing video online and exposing its players’ personalities." While the NFL "restricts the use of video highlights and markets teams and the league over players, the NBA has made up ground among millennials." Some in the NBA "believe it could eventually surpass the NFL as America’s dominant sports league." Mavericks Owner Mark Cuban in an email wrote, "Can I foresee it? Yes." He mentioned the "need for the NBA to create 'destination content.'" Kilgore notes while non-subscription apps or websites "require original, appealing content to attract advertisers, subscription services -- the kind the NBA will likely rely on more in the future -- need it even more." Cuban said that the first step "is the NBA’s first awards event, to be hosted by Drake and air on TNT on June 26." Cuban has also "pushed the league to create its own version of soccer’s World Cup 'as an alternative to the Olympics.'" Cuban: "Subscription sites are spending $10 billion-plus a year for content in an effort to gain and retain subscribers. Of those billions of dollars, they still have to spend a lot of money to find hits. The competition between all the above will be greater, with greater consequences, than the competition between networks on traditional subscription TV ever was. And given that these subscription services are global and so is the NBA, I would say that it’s possible our revenue could grow significantly if the landscape then is similar to today" (WASHINGTON POST, 6/9).
